Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. Love is not cynical. Love is not pessimistic. Love is never ready to listen to gossip. Love always looks for an explanation that will show the best in others. Love is not despondent, but undiscourageable. Love hopeth all things. Love knows no fading of its hope. Love does not stop giving because it has been deceived.

Love would rather help ten bad men and get to one good man than withhold from ten for fear of missing the one. And if love has helped one man ten times and he again falls ten times, love is ready to help again because love hopes. Love is not conquerable but indomitable. Love endures all things. Love can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

Christ came in love and Christ died for us. Those of us who have been redeemed through that love are possessed by that love. Surely we should put no mask on it. Surely we should take it out among men and show it as it is without hypocrisy, the true love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Over a half-century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Love, the Great Indispensable. If a man receives a new set of woodworking tools as a gift but does not know how to use them properly, he will make lopsided birdhouses and other poorly constructed projects. But an expert carpenter will know how to use his new tools to make many beautiful, useful items.

God has given every believer at least one spiritual gift. But merely knowing what your spiritual gifts are and exercising them is not enough. We must always remember that the only right way to serve the Lord and others is to do so in genuine Christian love. The scripture text for this edition, Romans chapter 12 and verse nine. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled Love, the Great Indispensable.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We have asked thy blessing on the preparation of this message, and now we ask thee to carry it through the broadcasting to the ears and hearts of the listeners. Among those who listen, may there be a quiet that comes from thee and the consciousness of thy presence and thy power in order that we may be all blessed with thine own blessing. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the 12th chapter of the book of Romans, we come in the ninth verse to the great phrase, "Let love be without dissimulation." We have been studying about Christian gifts. We now consider how these gifts should be used. Preaching, exhortation, pastoral work, giving, teaching, performing acts of mercy, all these things are divine gifts. God gives the Holy Spirit to each person who's truly born again and with him, these gifts.

Then in the next breath after listing the gifts and insisting that they must be used to the utmost, God tells us that love must be without hypocrisy. This leads us to consider the parallel passage in 1 Corinthians, where this same order is followed. In 1 Corinthians, there is a long dissertation about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The writer lists the gifts and then points out that not everyone has all of them.

He concludes, "Earnestly desire the higher gifts and I will show you a more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Then follows the great song of love, which ends, "And now abides faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love." So it is here in Romans. The gifts are set out in order, and then we're told that love is to be without dissimulation.

God, who sees the hearts of all men, knows that even in the leadership of the Christian Church, there is a lack of true love in the administration of His gifts. We're reminded of Ezekiel's great warnings. "O you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves."

Guest (Male): Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you've ruled them. As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, rams and he-goats."

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture and to drink of clear water that you must foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have fouled with your feet? Is it possible that there are such weaknesses among the Lord's shepherds? Can it be that the Lord's sheep act like this?

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The answer is clear in Romans 12:9, our text: "Let love be without dissimulation." The Greek is, "Let love be without hypocrisy." Everything touched by hypocrisy is damaged and defiled, most of all love. Our word is a transliteration of the ancient Greek word used for the acting of a stage player. From that meaning, it was an easy step to acting in real life, and thus hypocrisy.

The assuming of a false appearance of virtue or goodness with dissimulation of real character or inclinations, especially in respect of religious life or beliefs, and from thence the definition turned to pretense and sham. True love cannot have any part of this. Some poisons are so powerful that one or two drops are sufficient to make fatal all of the wine in a large decanter. Hypocrisy is such a poison. Love must be without it.

The Holy Spirit places this sentence at this particular point in the narrative because we're passing from a listing of the gifts to instructions for exercising them. We've already been told that the gifts are to be used with zeal, with diligence, cheerfulness. But here is something more. True love must leave the stage and walk in the paths of real life. The unsaved world knows nothing of this. Pagan righteousness could not produce the love which comes from Christ alone.

The love set forth here is that love which the Christian has toward all men. What is indicated here is not primarily love for God or the love that is to be exercised among believers, but it is to characterize the man who has become the temple of the Holy Spirit. God is love, and God dwells within. Therefore, the mark which is the chief characteristic of God must become the chief characteristic of the believer. It's well to note that no definition of love is given here.

Someone has said that there are times when definition is destruction. Who ever questioned the beauty of the sunset? But who can define it? The astronomer can give us the mathematics of it, and I doubt not that there is mathematics in the sunset, but there is no sunset glory in the mathematics. There is a chemistry of colors, but there is no wistful healing light in that chemistry. Beauty defined is beauty destroyed. And so here, God simply states that love is to take off every disguise and walk with the heart bared for the world to see.

It's a hard thing to do, for instinct calls us to protect ourselves, to keep the wounds away from our heart where love meets no response. I know so well how easy it is to form a shell about one's emotions in order to keep from being hurt and to withhold all that love might give for fear of being hurt. But when we recognize that the love of Christ will cast out all fear of being hurt, we can love as he wants us to love.

Three different words in the Greek are translated as love. One is not found in the New Testament but is in the Greek word used in the Septuagint, the word that's used for lustful passion. Now, this word was so debased that the Holy Spirit did not use it at all in the New Testament. The second word is used for affection and is found in the very next verse in Romans, where we read, "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love."

We have this word in combinations such as Philadelphia and philosophy. And the word can also be used in a bad sense as well as good, for in such phrases as the love of money and the love of preeminence, this second word is found. The third Greek word is the one used here. Just as the New Testament avoids the word eros, lustful passionate love, so the ancient world did not know the great biblical word agape.

It is defined as the love that springs from admiration and veneration and which chooses its object with decision of will and devotes a self-denying compassionate devotion to it. It is love in its fullest conceivable form. In the New Testament, this word is always used when the direction of the will is considered. Affection may have a selfish element, but true love cannot be selfish. Agape is used to define God. God is love. One of the most sublime sentences in all human language: God is love.

And agape, the very name and definition of God, is used in our text for human beings made new by God's creative love. The fact that God is love gives this word its heavenly quality, leads us to realize that such love can come only from God Himself. Are we new creatures in Christ? Then we must walk in love. And that love is not to wear a mask. In the Greek theater, it had neither background nor scenery nor costumes; the actors carried masks.

Made with such expressions that the audience could easily see whether the character was tragic, comic, or melodramatic. The actor walked about the stage with this mask in his hand and occasionally held it before his face. Now, this was a commonplace of ancient knowledge. Thus, when Paul wrote that love must be without hypocrisy, without acting, the Christian caught the meaning immediately and understood that he was saying that a believer must be absolutely honest.

A few years ago, at the English Keswick, Dr. W. Graham Scroggie lectured on the love life as set forth in the 13th of 1 Corinthians. He noted that in this great song of love, there were 14 sentences about love. And he strengthened the meaning of each of love's qualities by describing them also in terms of their opposites. The first part of the chapter is a picture of what the church of Corinth was and should not have been. And then he shows what the church was not and should have been.

There is a description of divine gifts without love, and then of love without gifts. In the latter, the life of God retains its full force, even though the gifts are absent. And thus, while gifts without love are worthless, love, even without gifts, retains its full value. If we are to live so that our love is without pretense, without sham, without hypocrisy, without dissimulation, we must see both positive and negative aspects of each quality of love.

"Love suffereth long and is kind." Let's look at these details. First, love is not hasty. It is patient. Love suffereth long. When love is wronged, it does not rush to protect itself, but waits for the Lord, who certainly will right all wrongs when the day of final accounting comes. Second, love is not inconsiderate, but benevolent. Love is kind. Love seeks to be constructive. Love is full of goodness.

If the patience of love is a victory over self-defense, the kindness of love is its victory over self-pleasing. There may be those who persist in the face of evil and do it in an obstinate fashion, but to persist in the face of evil with a heart that is brimming with kindness is a triumph of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is impossible to love without being kind. Thirdly, love is not envious, but content. Love envies not. Love is not possessive. Love is not jealous. Love is glad when others win honors, achieve fame, strike it rich.

Our life on earth is indeed full of inequalities. We, oh yes, we may set forth a national ideal that all men are born free and equal, but we know that this is not true. We grant that in the sight of God, a man is a man and one man is as good as another. But it will take the full round of judgment day to reveal all that is in the mind of God concerning that which we now live and see around us. We know that a moron does not have the brains of a genius, that a pauper does not enjoy the wealth of a millionaire, that an invalid is not as strong as an athlete.

George Orwell put it, "All men are equal, but some are more equal than others." Now, even the best of democracy cannot overcome this fact. But the true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is content with the lot which God has ordained for him. Only a Christian can be genuinely glad when others are preferred before him. Through envy, Christ's enemies delivered him, and through love, he conquered them.

Fourth, love is not boastful, but unostentatious. Love is not anxious to impress. Love makes no parade. Love does not show off. In our study of the third chapter, we have seen that boasting is excluded by the law of grace. And thus it is that love works in the life of the believer. Love does not look for applause. Love is not interested in getting the credit for what is done but is interested only in getting things done.

Five, love is not arrogant, but humble. Love is not puffed up. Love does not cherish inflated ideas of its own importance or does not give itself airs. Love is never haughty, but is lowly and gracious. Six, love is not rude, but courteous. Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love has good manners. Love is always polite. "Do let us learn," says Dr. Scroggie, "that there is such a thing as the etiquette of the Christian life, and only love knows and practices it."

Courtesy is doing good in a good way, and not, as is so often the case, doing good in a bad way. Love will always make the proper balance when honesty and kindness are in the scales and will not blurt out the truth that hurts another. Seven, love is not selfish, but self-forgetful. Love does not seek its own. Love does not pursue selfish advantage. Love does not insist on its own way. Love never asks, "What's in this for me?" Love doesn't look for an angle. Love is not out for number one.

Eight, love is not irritable, but good-tempered. Love is not easily provoked. Love is not touchy. Love knows how to keep its temper. Good temper is an estate for life, said Hazlitt. Think of all the generals who've won campaigns and captured cities, and then think of God's word: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Ninth, love is not vindictive, but generous. Love thinks no evil. Love is never resentful.

Love does not compile statistics of evil. Oh, we must not forget the wonder of God's memory as He describes it. "Your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more." And He is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and your labor of love. And thus it is that love works toward us. Ten, love is not malevolent, but high-principled. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love does not gloat over the wickedness of other people.

On the contrary, love is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love does not try to show itself higher by pulling someone else down lower. Love does not want to bring to light the sins of other men even though love hates sin and is sad when it sees someone sinning. Love loves the sinner even while it hates his sin. Love will never condone but will always condemn sin. Love will shelter the one in trouble without becoming a party to hiding sin.

11, love is not rebellious, but brave. Love beareth all things. Love knows no limits to its endurance. When Christ was reviled, he reviled not again. Love will work this in us, and love will carry its portion of the burden and will reach out to help those who are weak, to bear their burdens also. 12, love is not suspicious, but confident. Love knows no end to its trust. Love believes all things. Now, this does not mean that love is stupid or gullible.

Love is not credulous, but love is always ready to think the best. Love is not cynical. Love is not pessimistic. Love is never ready to listen to gossip. Love makes every allowance. Love always looks for an explanation that will show the best in others. Scroggie quotes Carlyle as an illustration of this when he pleaded so eloquently for Robert Burns. Carlyle said, "Granted the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged. The pilot is blameworthy. He has not been all-wise and all-powerful."

"But to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been around the globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs," ports that were a few miles off. It's this quality that can make tired men renew their strength when they become the objects of such love. It's this that makes the sinner look up and take hope. 13, love is not despondent, but undiscourageable. Love hopeth all things. Love knows no fading of its hope. Love does not stop giving because it has been deceived.

Love would rather help ten bad men and get to one good man than withhold from ten for fear of missing the one. And if love has helped one man ten times and he again falls ten times, love is ready to help again, because love hopes. 14, love is not conquerable, but indomitable. Love endures all things. Love can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

Christ came in love, and Christ died for us. Those of us who have been redeemed through that love are possessed by that love. Surely we should put no mask on it. Surely we should take it out among men and show it as it is without hypocrisy, the true love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit shall take this to each heart and use it that we may know thee better and love thee more and let thee love others through us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Authentic Christian love is the absolutely indispensable ingredient if we are to effectively exercise our spiritual gifts, serve the Lord, minister to others, and reach the world for Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled Love, the Great Indispensable. Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet. Visit us online at Alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Love, the Great Indispensable, or simply request message number R12-19. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled The Bible Under Attack. Believers embrace the Holy Scriptures as the very Word of God. But for years, the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible has been challenged by the enemies of the Gospel.

This free five-chapter booklet powerfully reaffirms the inerrancy, infallibility, and authority of God's living Word. Ask for your free copy of The Bible Under Attack when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview.

Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teaching of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken.

For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit us online at Alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please consider a donation to help us stay on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888.

Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103. Visit us online at Alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for being with us today. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.